[3][need quotation to verify] Sauckel joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in January 1923 (member 1,395) and cofounded an Ortsgruppe (Local Group) in Ilmenau, serving as its Ortsgruppenführer.

Despite the forced dissolution of the party in the wake of the failed putsch, Sauckel remained active in political activities, establishing a right wing organization called Bund Teja, giving speeches, founding an SA front organization in Thuringia named Deutscher Wanderverein and serving as the Bezirksleiter (District Leader) for Thuringian Forest.

He also became in 1924 the publisher of a small newspaper in Ilmenau, which in 1925 would merge with another paper and develop into the official organ of the Party in Thuringia, Der Nationalsozialist.

[5] On 8 December 1929, Sauckel was elected to the Landtag of Thuringia as one of six Nazi deputies that would hold the balance of power there between the leftist (24) and center-right (23) parties.

[6] On 23 January 1930, a coalition government took office in Thuringia which for the first time in Germany included Nazi ministers, Wilhelm Frick and Willy Marschler.

[9] On 9 September 1934, Sauckel joined the SS as an SS-Gruppenführer at the invitation of Heinrich Himmler and was assigned to SS-Oberabschnitte Mitte (Senior Section Central) based in Weimar until 1 April 1936 when he was transferred to the staff of the Reichsführer-SS.

[10] Upon the death of Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper Sauckel was appointed to succeed him as the acting Reichsstatthalter of both Anhalt and Brunswick from 30 November 1935 to 20 April 1937.

[8] At the start of World War II on 1 September 1939, Sauckel was named Reich Defense Commissioner (Reichsverteidigungskommissar) for Wehrkreis (Military District) IX headquartered in Kassel.

On 21 March 1942, Sauckel was appointed to the position for which he would be forever linked in history, General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz) on the recommendation of Martin Bormann.

Sauckel worked directly under Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring within the Four Year Plan Office, obtaining and allocating labour for German industry and agriculture.

In response to increased demands for labour from German war industries, Hitler issued a decree on 30 September 1942 granting Sauckel extraordinary powers over both civil and military authorities in the occupied territories.

Of an estimated five million foreign workers brought to Germany, only around 200,000 came voluntarily, according to a March 1944 statement by Sauckel introduced as evidence at Nuremberg.

[17]On 1 July 1944, following the division of the Prussian Province of Saxony, Sauckel was named Oberpräsident of the Regierungsbezirk (Government District) Erfurt, which became part of Thuringia.

Yet, documents put into evidence showed that he was complicit in exploiting the labourers: All the men [prisoners of war and foreign civilian workers] must be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure.Robert Servatius, Sauckel's counsel, portrayed Sauckel as a representative of the labour classes of Germany; an earnest and unpretentious party man assiduously committed to promoting the collective utility of the working class.

Sauckel surmised that Speer bore greater legal and moral responsibility by virtue of the fact that the former merely met the demands of the latter, in accordance with protocol.

Albert Speer escaped the death sentence and served 20 years at Spandau prison, one of the most controversial verdicts of the Nuremberg trials.

[23] Sauckel's body, as were those of the other nine executed men and the corpse of Hermann Göring, was cremated at Ostfriedhof (Munich) and the ashes were scattered in the river Isar.